Suds Of Blue

        Well, time went by, winter came and went and before I knew it, I was graduating.  I actually made it.  I was glad too because back in my freshman year, I had bought my high school ring with the date 1978 on it.  I still have that around somewhere in a box I’m sure.  Graduation was no big thing.  We had it outdoors at the fairgrounds in the afternoon.  Afterwards, a lot of people were going to various parties and such.  Wade and I decided that packing up some steaks and beer, hiking up the mountain, and having an overnight campout would be more fun.  Gary and Carl joined in also.  So much for graduation festivities.

I never was much of a party person either.  Nobody ever understood that too much since I was in the band.  There were always big parties afterwards when we played.  I just packed up my gear and went home or went to a movie.

        I don’t remember specifics about the summer that year.  It was work as usual at the river-rafting job.  I also acquired a job on the train like I stated earlier.  I took quite a few trips on this bad boy that year.  If you ever get a chance to ride, you need to.  The train makes a few stops along the route to Silverton.  Once for water before going up the grade, and two more times to let people off or pick people up from different camps in the canyon.  The one I remember most was called “Ah Wilderness”.  It’s tucked in the canyon and the only way to get there is either by hiking in or taking the train.  The train is quicker by far.  I’ve always wanted to work there as a hand doing something or maybe being the caretaker in the winter.  Dad and I took the 45.5-mile hike to Silverton one year.  It took 4 days to do so.  You don’t have much choice but to follow the river the entire way. There’s not a lot of area to wander off to.  There’s good fishing on the way and lots of waterfalls.  We didn’t bring to much food since we were going to eat fish that we caught at night.  Unfortunately, dad got tick fever along the way.  We made it all the way into Silverton just in time to catch the train back home.  Someday, I would like to take that trip again without the ticks.

        At this point in my life, I had never really given much thought to my future and what I was going to do with myself.  That’s right, I was stupid.  I did know however that I should at least make the attempt at college for a year.

        My Uncle Tom Winterfield happened to be attending a college in Houston Texas at the time.  The college was called Gulf Coast Bible College.  This of course made mom real happy since she thought this would be good for me.  I had grown up in the Baptist church realm.  Church to me was always more of a social outing more than anything.  I did the Sunday school routine as a little kid and then went on to do the teen thing and youth group routine.  I would also attend the actual church services as well.  All I remember about them is the pastor way up in the front doing his speech and pounding on the pulpit once in awhile.  I know there was messages in there but I couldn’t hold interest long enough to find out what it was.  Let’s face it, It was boring!  Very formal and stuffy also.

        Anyway, I didn’t see the harm in attending one year out of my life and it would be fun to get out of the state and go somewhere I hadn’t been before.  Mom and dad took time out from work and the three of us drove on down.  I took the bare essentials on this trip.  I figured I could get what I needed when I got there.

        I had never been to a big city before.  Colorado Springs was big but spread out over a large area and didn’t have honest to gosh skyscrapers or clover leaf freeways.  This was totally different.  It creeped me out basically.  Luckily, the college was on the Northeast side of the central city in a less crowded area.  Unfortunately, The area the college was in was called “The Heights”. In short, The Heights was the ghetto.

The college grounds took up approximately 2 blocks.  All around the nicely landscaped campus were neighborhoods consisting of run down HUD homes and shanty’s.  The girl’s dorm was tucked in between two of the campus buildings in the center of campus.  The boy’s dorm was located at the furthest corner of the two blocks.  The dorm had once been a two-story apartment building and had been converted into a 15-room dorm.  Each room held 2 guys.  Across the street were homes in which the residents would hang out doing drug deals and showing off the wonderful guns tucked into their waistline.  On several occasions, gunfire was heard during the nights to come.  Most of the cars in the small parking lot facing the street were broken into at some point in time.  We would have to do our clothes in the laundry room at the end of the dorms in shifts also.  If you left things unattended, you would find them being worn by the people on the other side of the street, and they let you know they had them by parading around.  We were told by the campus faculty to let it go.  After all, we were a Christian bible college and we need to act like it.  I was pretty sure that being trampled on and not doing anything or being a doormat wasn’t in the bible anywhere.

        The college was part of the “Church of God”.  This was a bit different than I was used to.  I realize now that I grew up in a “Conservative” Baptist church...very mellow.  This place was a very UN-conservative type organization.  People here would be falling on the floor waving their hands around shouting “Praise the Lord” and “Hallelujah” during services.  Crying aloud and moaning was also acceptable.  The director and pastor of the college was a good fire and brimstone type guy when he got up and talked.  He yelled and beat the crap out of that pulpit better than anybody.  It drove me crazy.

        None of the faculty liked me too much.  I came to school to learn what I could and I didn’t think I had to wear a full 3 piece suit and tie everyday in the muggy heat to do so.  I didn’t dress bad either.  I wore nice jeans, a button up shirt, and tennis shoes.  What’s wrong with that?  I got a lot of the “you’re a disgrace” looks from teachers and students when I would walk by.  Mr. Trick who was my “Old Testament Survey” teacher told me to leave the class one day after a dress code discussion in class.  I asked him “If Jesus walked in the class right now in his one-piece dirty cloth robe, dirty feet, and sandals, long hair, beard and moustache, would you kick him out of class for dress code violation”.  He wasn’t amused.  I thought it was a good question.  Soon though, I had made a few friends who started dressing my way (normal) and we hung out together.

        Three of us found jobs with Pinkerton Security.  I was in need of money and it seemed like a good way to get some.  We went to school from 8:00a to 3:00p.  After school we would take one of the guy’s car to work and be there by 4:00.

        The job was pretty cool.  We all three worked in a building complex called the Americana Buildings.  There were three of them.  The Ling Tower was a 17-story tower.  The Riviana Tower, which I worked in, was also a 17-story building.  The tallest building was the American General Tower at 25-stories.

        All I had to do was sit at the guard desk in the main lobby when I arrived and do PR work with the people who worked there or who would be coming in and out.  I would check people in, or make calls to people Etc.  At 5:30, the Towers were 99% empty of people.  At that time, I would go around and lock all of the exit doors, turn off all lights in the building, and do my “rounds” every hour.  After this, I had until midnight to do homework and mess around.

        One weekend that I remember, two of us were doing double shifts.  We came in at our usual 4:00 on Friday afternoon, but instead of leaving at midnight, we kept working until 8:00a on Saturday morning.  At around 5:00a on Saturday morning, I got a call on the radio from Gary at the Ling Tower.  He told me to come outside and meet him at the front of the buildings.

        The front of the buildings faced a large grass park that had a large 4-tier fountain, benches, and a walking trail.  The fountain was huge.  You would have to climb the tiers if you wanted to reach the top and the bottom bowl was probably 2 feet deep and 30 feet in diameter.  It also had several ground effect lights of different colors that lit it up at night.

        When I met Gary in the front of the buildings, I found out why he wanted to see me.  During the night, someone had taken ten or so large boxes of laundry soap and a big bottle of blue food coloring and put them in the fountain.  The soap, color, and the falling water had made the largest, prettiest bubble masses I’ve ever seen.  There were so many large blue tinted clumps, that they had escaped the confines of the fountain and were blowing gently along the grass.  These things were as big as Volkswagens.  If the vandals were hoping to get a reaction from us, they got their wish.  Watching the beautiful blue tinted clods of bubbles as the sun was coming up, lighting up the sky with an orange hue, and the ground effect lights making the bubbles sparkle, almost brought a tear to my eye.  We were amazed.  All we could do is clap.  I felt like singing "God Bless America”.  We picked up the empty boxes and bottle and went in.

        I managed to save up a good chunk of money during this time and I also seemed to loose other things like weight.  During the first nine weeks of school, I somehow managed to loose 60 pounds and 10 inches from my waist.  At one point, I literally had to hold my pants up when I walked to keep them from falling down.  Don’t ask me how I did it.  I guess puberty set in late or something.  When I went home for Christmas, mom and dad didn’t recognize me at the airport.

        Until now, my social life had been non-existent.  My work schedule in High school left no room for “love-life”.  In college however, I did happen to meet a girl named Susan.  Honest…I was minding my own business at a football game one night when she came up to me and introduced herself.  She was cute and all and I had seen her in my “Old Testament Survey” class.  I also knew that she was going out with one of my friends.  She was persistent though.  I was meek and shy.  Poor, poor me…ok, whatever.  We started seeing each other though out the year and had a pretty good relationship going.  This was my first real girlfriend after all.  DETAILS NOT AVAILABLE THROUGH LOCAL CHANNELS…THIS IS PAY-PER-VIEW TYPE STUFF ONLY.

        Suzy was a farm girl from Idaho.  Her folks owned a lot of acreage and farmed; what else; potatoes.  She planned on staying at college for a couple of years and then going back to the farm to help out with the place.  That was ok I guess.  I planned on doing one year and then wanted to get out and see more places.

        Christmas came and I flew back home for vacation.  Like I said earlier, mom and dad didn’t recognize me at the airport.  I waved and waved but they just kept looking for me.  Mom about dropped over dead when she saw me.  Needless to say, I got lots of clothes that year for presents.

After vacation, I planned on driving my car back to Houston so I could get around better.  I had been bumming rides with the guys all this time back and forth to work and wanted to start doing my own thing.  I had a Monza 2 + 2 which I had left parked at the house and which was now buried in 4 foot of snow.  When break was over, I shoveled off the snow, packed it up, waved so long, and headed out.  Now I was going in style.

The rest of the school year was standard stuff…nothing special.  School was coming to an end, I was now nineteen, I had a girlfriend, and life was good.  Then Suzy broke up with me.  What could I do?  I felt used…I felt cheap.  She must have used me for my stunning personality and passionate kisses.  Am I not a man?  Am I not human?  I am not an animal!  LOSER!…her, not me.

It didn’t take long to regain my composure.  What was I doing anyway?  It would be good to get back home.  It was then that I promised myself that I wouldn’t even consider getting mushy or gooey after a girl until I was at least 30 years old. (Twighlight Zone music goes here) keep reading and you will find out why.  It was 1979.